Today is the debut of Kill Bill Vol. 2... I'm really looking forward to
that one. More guns and action are on tap in The Punisher, but in spite
of my life-long affection for comic books, I'm a little dubious about this
one... I think it might have to do with that creepy black wig/dye job Thomas
Jane sports in the promos reminding me too much of Dolph Lundgren in that awful
original. On the other hand,
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos is easier on the eyes than Lou Gossett, so this could be
tolerable regardless...

Please pray to the God of your choice that my neighborhood will be free of the tyranny of 2am motorcycle revving, trash thrown across the yard, and children running around the street in nothing but diapers.

jesus dude, where do you kive? Mudhole, FLA?

----------------------------------------------------------------------"Perhaps the answer to the perennial problem of delinquent teenagers dropping bricks from motorway and railway bridges is to sue the creators of Tetris."- Unknown Author

As I type this, a giant U-Haul is pulled up to the house on the corner where all the white trash people and their motorcycles live. The garage is...clean. (IE A lack of shit thrown about.)

Please pray to the God of your choice that my neighborhood will be free of the tyranny of 2am motorcycle revving, trash thrown across the yard, and children running around the street in nothing but diapers.

You would be hard pressed to find just about any industry that does not have some sort of dependence or interaction with the federal government. My point was that the legislature points to interstate commerce as their right to get involved.

When I was in college, my university was trying VERY hard to refuse any type of direct funding or grants from the feds. They wanted to be as far away as possible from government interference. The feds nailed them on the financial aide the students received in order to attend school. That crack was all they needed to begin pushing the school on its core electives, whatever.

The cat is out of the bag. The bureaucrats will never let the golden goose be slaughtered.

I'm not saying I want a tax free society. I'm merely pointing out the near impossibility of one occurring here in the states.

Story Tip: I've been sick for a few days now, right? Well today I woke up and felt a bit better, now I don't know if it was the Roach Spray, the chance I overdosed on nasal spray, the fact I waited too long after waking up to eat, or a combination of these all. Well I ended up so sick to my stomach that I was hungry, but every time I tried to eat or drink, even water, I would horek it all back up. This is not a fun situation and should be avoided at all costs. However, you are not sol, go lay down in your fume ridden room and pass out for a few hours, you will feel much better when you wake up.

Only works when the Federal government doesn't interfear in any form what so ever. When the government exists beyond protecting the nation from threats, and expanding trades...that's where the problems start. And that...is what we have now. And yes, it can be done without the taxes we run.

Ok, first off, people have always paid taxes. Serfs paid their lords, the lords paid their regent. People will always pay taxes. The only two certainties in life are death and taxes. Deal with it.

Second, what about Smith? He fully accepted government intervention, regulation and taxation.

1. "The subject of every State ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the State."

2. "The tax each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, and the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor, and to ever other person."

3. "Every tax ought to be levied at the time, or in the manner in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it."

4. "Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the State."

The list of what income tax goes to provide is too long to list, but the education that's allowed you analyze and question the fairness of that tax has also been paid for by that tax. Perhaps you'd rather have spent your days as a child working in some factory for peanuts for 14-16 hours a day instead of getting an education and being protected by the government (also paid for by that tax)? Perhaps you feel that sort of "luxury" only belongs to the elite?

Anyone who argues against income tax is either clueless and/or an idiot. That is not to say how those taxes are applied or how people are taxed is the same thing at all, it's not. There is a whole ton of unfairness in those two things and it's long past due to fix them.

"To compel a man to furnish funds for the propagation of ideas he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical."- Thomas Jefferson

This comment was edited on Apr 16, 18:36.

"And then, suddenly and without warning, it turned into a real-life case of hungry, hungry hippos."- Stephen Colbert

Only works when the Federal government doesn't interfear in any form what so ever. When the government exists beyond protecting the nation from threats, and expanding trades...that's where the problems start. And that...is what we have now. And yes, it can be done without the taxes we run.

The game...is far from over. I'd suggest abit of reading from Adam Smith.

--"For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong." --H.L. Mencken

Bet you didn't know that you didn't pay income tax until WWI(maybe WWII) either. The whole point of that was to pay for the war.

The 16th ammendment was ratified in 1913. Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated on June 28, 1914. The US entered The Great War on April 6, 1917. There's a bit of a discrepancy there.

We both operated, and survived fine without government taking money out of our pockets on a regular basis.

Yes, and we had limited interstate commerce, virtually no regulation of commerce (I'd hope that, even as a libertarian, you're not against child labor laws or even basic workplace safety laws), no food or drug safety laws, no environmental regulation (you may wish to dicker over the extent needed, but pure capitalism does not adjust costs for long term negative effects of production), or a number of other actions that do fall to the Federal government under even strict interpretations of the US Constitution.

The federal government should exist to protect the nation...that's it. No more, no less.

To quote the preamble of the US Constitution:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

That's considerably more than just having a standing army. You'd be hard pressed to prove that the interstate highway system has not "promoted general welfare", or that food and drug testing don't do the same.

Let the states handle what they want.

And when it comes to issues larger than any one state? Like environmental concerns?

I'm closer to libertarian than either of the mainstream political parties, but there are reasons they've never managed to get anywhere. It's an idealized political viewpoint that often loses touch with reality.

that homemade rocket launcher rules. 4 rockets!!! You know.... I *am* getting tired of one-shot launchers. Sure, UT2004's launcher can launch 3... but it only has 1 hole to shoot out of, and that's just not cool enough. :-P

Um as for taxes, well I agree mostly. But I dunno man, California is the world's 5th largest economy, and surely that means it has a MASSIVE % of the total US GDP. If Californians no longer pay federal taxes, other states will suffer greatly. Beneficial to Californians (such as me), but hurts others. And since others are not living in California.. and THEY form the majority in this republic... we Californians gotta keep paying taxes :-P As I always say, anytime you have a democracy, you're gonna get some form of socialism, whether or not you call it that or not. Whether it be in the form of national income taxes that spread wealth throughout the country (Social Security was directly lifted from the Socialist Party platform by FDR), regardless of the source's location, or immigration restrictions to make sure American employers are forced to hire natives.... socialism is a natural, and inevitable, outcome of any democratic nation. (Er, so long as you define socialist acts as "government regulation of the market", which is what alot of conservatives do define it as. Personally I would call it "state capitalism", capitalist but only to the point that the benefits are guaranteed to go to a certain group of people first. Afterall, the ideological socialism tends to mean a world without borders, and global taxation and voting systems and such.)

These tax dodgers must be pretty naive. I hate taxes as much as the next guy, but like em or not they're the foundation of our government's ability to provide services to us. ...

Bound and determined on that are you? Never heard of the pay for services bit or anything else. Bet you didn't know that you didn't pay income tax until WWI(maybe WWII) either. The whole point of that was to pay for the war. We both operated, and survived fine without government taking money out of our pockets on a regular basis. Fire depts. are paid for by local taxes, same for police. This is calling for the removal of Federal Income taxes, not local or state taxes.

I'd almost say that these people are libertarians, but they might not be at that point yet. The federal government should exist to protect the nation...that's it. No more, no less. Let the states handle what they want.

You can take that, or leave that as you wish.

--"For every human problem, there is a neat, simple solution; and it is always wrong." --H.L. Mencken